Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Meiji Dori and the Zoo

Day 15 and 16

There are a couple of main roads around Shibuya. I walked down one last week to Daikanyama. On Monday I took the bus down one to Roppongi Hills. On Tuesday I walked up one called Meiji Dori. There are alot of shops along that street, but none that really suit me. When I was here in March, Tim and I went to a shrine and then walked down Harajuku, which is just a walking street with shops. Meiji Dori intersects that street, so I walked up there for a bit. It was a pretty warm day, and like all good Japanese people, I had my hankerchief to wipe the sweat off my face. There is a Godiva chocolate shop, and they had a new product, ice cream truffles. So I bought some to try. But then I forgot about them and let them melt. Lucky for me they refreeze easily, and they tasted pretty good. There is a Burberry shop. I much prefer the fashions inside the Burberry store to the other stores. Most of the other stores were casual t-shirt places. But Burberry has pretty sweaters and skirts and things. There was also a shrine randomly tucked away between the tall buildings of the street.

On Wednesday a friend and I went to the zoo with her two kids. It was supposed to be a bigger group, but everyone else was worried it would rain. Lucky for us it sprinkled for just a few minutes, and stayed overcast so it wasn't too hot to walk around. The zoo is up in Ueno, but it is just one subway line to get there, so that was pretty easy. There is a big park that apparently is a good cherry blossom viewing area. When you walk into the zoo they have a big sign explaining how they don't have any panda bears. I can't tell if this is because they used to have them, or because they have never had any and everyone expects to see them in a zoo. We saw many animals.... and all I could think of were movie quotes. Is this water sanitary? Seems questionable to me.... Especially after we saw the elephant use it like a latrine. Gross. We got lunch at one of the cafe's in the zoo, and on the menu was pancakes, in addition to curry, rice, and fried chicken. This amused me, but I wasn't sure pancakes at a zoo cafe would taste good, so Tim and I went to a breakfast place for dinner instead.